Cookie Overload

I haven't eaten a healthy thing in four days now.  I am going to have to go on a vegetable IV drip if this keeps up.  Since Erik started on his Christmas Baking Frenzy, we have switched our four food groups to sugar, flour, butter and chocolate.  So much deadly deliciousness in such a small package.

It is hard to say how this came about.  Perhaps Erik was feeling lonely.  This has been our first Christmas without family since 2010, and only our second ever as a foursome.  Perhaps he just missed his mother's Christmas baking, which is understandable, as the woman is a champion.  But, whatever the reason, Erik got in a baking mood.

Just in case it has somehow escaped your attention, Erik only has two modes: full out, or full stop.*  And, like his mother, he mentally takes the number of people he is ostensibly cooking for and multiplies it by ten.

I found Erik at the computer, merrily typing away.
"I thought you were going to bake cookies," I said.
"I am."
I looked over his shoulder.  "That's Excel."
"Well, I have to make a shopping list, don't I?"
"One point two kilos of butter?  A kilo and a half of sugar?"  I shook my head.  "I have the basics here, you know.  Can't you just make some cookies from what we have?"
"You don't have everything I need," said Erik.  "Not the specialty ingredients.  This way we can plan to have these items in stock every December.  You know, if you'd just let me set up a Kanban system for you..."
But I had already fled to safety.  I know better than to stick around when the Kanban talk flares up.

Visiting the Toy Aisle - French Edition

Here we are, two days from Christmas.  Time to break out that wallet and go buy some cheap junk that your family neither wants nor needs!  And even if Christmas isn't your thing, there are all the sales to think about, right?  If you're going to buy things you don't need, you might as well get them at a reduced price.

But, oh, what's this?  Hmm.  Something is fishy here.  It looks like home.  Huge floorspace.  Big crowds.

Industrial-sized bottles of ketchup.

Aha!  There's a clue.

 

A forty-foot display of Champagne is always a good tip-off that you are in a French territory.

Christmas Madness: Hunting Down Impossible Presents

It's that time of year again when even the most patient parents consider slipping out of the house and hiding under a tarp in the backyard until December 25th has come and gone.  And even though it is hot and humid here and about as un-Christmas-y as you can get, our family is gripped by Christmas fever.  My delightful children have been replaced by screaming hyperactive terrors belched forth straight from the Parental Punishment levels of Hell.  How my mother ever made it through those final days before Christmas with four kids whirling around her ankles is a mystery to me.  At least my dad could escape to the office when we were too much to take.

But, despite the fact that the girls are currently driving me crazy, I'd still like to get them something nice for Christmas.  As you can imagine, gift-giving on a boat takes some extra planning.  You can't exactly nip off the the store the night of the 23rd and expect to mop up your last-minute gifts.  For one thing, there usually is no store.  But, for once, we are somewhere completely first world in terms of available commercial goods.  Being a French territory, New Caledonia is well-served out of France.  But since I hadn't planned on being here and I wanted things like English-language books, I did the bulk of my shopping months ago.

The girls made their Christmas lists about six weeks ago.  As the ultra-prepared boat children they are, they wanted to give Santa and me time to get everything sorted out between us.  Stylish handed me her list; I cast a critical eye over her choices.  She won't get it all, but good ideas.  No surprises there.

Cruising Talk: A Translation Guide

What is this woman talking about?

I hope everyone has read Michael Robertson's The Complete Guide to Caring for a Cruiser in this month's Sail.  If not, go on; I'll wait.  Back?  Okay.  Michael's article is a timely reminder that cruisers are, to put it kindly, a little different.  But I feel compelled to add on to his fine work.  Communicating with cruisers can be a challenge, whether you are a friend, relative, cruising spouse or simply a normal person.  Below you will find some common points of misunderstanding.  I hope this translation guide helps you to talk to the cruisers in your life.

Cruiser:  "Could you help me out here, Mavis?"
Cruising Spouse:  "Sure thing, Pete."
What the Cruising Spouse hears:  Pete needs some minor assistance for a few minutes.
What the Cruiser hears:  "Pete, it would give me the utmost pleasure to be your assistant/slave for the next eight hours."
Lesson:  Before agreeing to help a cruiser, ask for clarification regarding time, difficulty and dirtiness level expected.  Then triple it.

Hold that flashlight steady for me, would you?

A Cruiser's Difficult Relationship With Water

I think I smell bad.  After spending three hours in the park then hiking over the hills of Noumea in 30 C heat, how could I be anything but sweaty?  I lean away from the woman sitting beside me in French class, hoping that the cool air in our basement room will mitigate my stink before it reaches her. But I know the real answer to my problem: I need a shower.  Again.  The very thought fills me with despair.

You may have noticed that cruisers are somewhat preoccupied with resource consumption.  Obsessed is a better word.  But when you carry around all of life's necessities in what amounts to an oversized backpack, you want to be sure you have absolutely everything you need.  Especially water.  If you run out of your favorite saltines out on the blue, you'll live.  If you don't have drinking water, it's an emergency.

So cruisers learn to conserve.  I mean, really conserve.  We are a stingy bunch when it comes to H2O.  Every guest who comes aboard gets the same lecture.  And they all nod and agree and are eager to cooperate - absolutely, we'll be careful with the water.  Be sparing, got it.  And then we hear the water pump run, and run, and run, until Erik and I bury our faces in pillows so no one hears us sobbing.  Because "being sparing" means something very different to a land-dweller than it does to a cruiser.  To them it means: try not to use more than you need.  To us it means: use the absolute bare minimum.  Land-dweller: don't forget to turn off the tap when you're done brushing your teeth.  Cruiser: you get two tablespoons of water for brushing your teeth and not a drop more.

The Joys of a Rainy Recess

Stylish was hard at work on her math when the light mist turned into a pelting rainstorm.  She dropped her pencil and looked out of the cockpit.  "Mom, it's raining.  Can I go outside and have recess?"
"Sure.  Put on a bathing suit first."
It is a pleasure to say those words again.  The bathing suit part, of course.  I've never been a don't-get-wet kind of person.  But, for so long, going out in the rain meant a pile of gear, drippy wool socks, and demands for hot chocolate at the end of it.  Sending the kids out to play in the rain is much more fun when they don't come back hypothermic.

Losing the Language Wars to a Five-Year-Old

“So, what did you do at school today?”
I know better than to ask this question.  There isn’t a child alive who has ever replied with actual facts when their mother asks about school.  But it was Indy’s first day at her new école in Noumea, and I was hoping that she would throw me a crumb.  After all, she is a boat kid; she might not realize that it is her duty as a child is to withhold school-related news at all costs.
“Nothing,” she said.
Darn.  Someone must have tipped her off.
“Le poisson, le poisson, le poisson,” sang Indy as she skipped along the path.
I raised my eyebrows.  She picked up a word already!  We had been a little concerned that Indy would find the first few weeks of school difficult, being an anglophone in a francophone world, but she emerged from class unfazed by any communication difficulties she might have encountered.
“Le poisson,” I repeated.  “Fish.  That’s a good word.”
She stopped skipping.  “No, Mom.  Not like that.  You draw it out.  Le poiiiisssssson.”  She slowly drew her hands apart.
“Le poiiiisssson,”
"Listen: poisson."
"Le poisson," I said again.
She shook her head and resumed skipping.  Six hours of school, and Indy's French was already better than mine. Whose idea was it to send this kid to school, anyway?

Cyclone Choices: Making the Decision

Over the past few months, I have sent a lot of emails with a line that looked like this: “Our current and almost definite plan is to head to Tasmania for cyclone season.  We’ll check in at Newcastle or Sydney, and wait for the weather to be right early in January to make the last hop to Hobart.”

Now, because you have been paying attention, you know that cruisers are totally unreliable when it comes to reporting their own plans.  And so it was with us.  Erik and I were 98% sure we were going to Tas.  We were keen on Tas. We had heard nothing but great things about the place: not many boats make the trip down, the cruising is spectacular, the people are great.  They understand cruisers there, which has not always been our experience in Australia.  In short, it sounded perfect.

But we’re not in Tasmania.  We’re not even in Australia.  We are still in Noumea, with a cyclone-secure berth waiting at the marina and the kids enrolled in school.  What happened?  In a phrase, the cruising life happened.

Picnics With Europeans: French vs Swiss-German (with Bonus American After-Party)

Ring, ring.
"Hello.  This is Boat French.  Would you like to go with us to Le parc provincial de la Rivière Bleue for a picnic on Sunday?
"Sure!"
"Bon.  See you at 0900 on Sunday."
Ring, ring.
"Hello.  This is Boat Swiss-German.  Would you like to go with us to Le parc provincial de la Rivière Bleue for a picnic on Sunday?
"We'd love to, but Boat French just asked us.  How about Tuesday?"
"Toll.  See you at 0900 on Tuesday."

Sunday: French picnic

When Are You Coming Home? Lies Cruisers Tell

Q: Do you have a planned end to your cruise? When you get to a particular place? After a set number of years?  When you (or the girls) get to be a particular age?

A:  It is barely mid-November, and already I am getting reports from home about snow.  I sit in the cockpit reading my email, and when a chill wind blows and the temperature plummets to 24 C, I put on a fleece.  I can't even handle the suggestion of snow anymore, much less the reality.  Perhaps these notes are my family's passive-aggressive way of keeping us out at sea.  So if you ask me today when I'm going home, I'll shout out, "Never!  Not in a million years!"

Which is a lie.  Of course we're going home again.  But the problem with asking about The End is simple.  It is the absolute, number one, gold medal, top-ranked worst question to ask a cruiser because the answer you get will be worthless.  Because nobody really knows.

Meet Our Neighbours on the Reef

There are days I think that we moved onto Papillon not to sail the seven seas, not to give Erik endless tinkering projects, not to spend family time - but to visit every coral reef on Earth.  We are reef peekers.  I feel no shame in that.

Erik and I used to do a lot of diving back in the day, but now we are snorkelers because it lets the kids get involved, and there is so much to see in those first twenty feet, anyway.  Now that Indy has joined the ranks of strong swimmers, it is all the easier.  Not that I didn't enjoy towing her along by her lifejacket strap or carrying her on my back.  But sometime over the past few months she made the switch from child to fish, just as Stylish did when we were starting out.  And now we are a well-oiled snorkeling machine.

Sinking Just a Little Bit

We woke up on Monday to discover the boat was sinking.  On my way to the bathroom, I heard an unwelcome drip drip sound coming from beneath the companionway.  We pulled up the floorboards, and, sure enough, the centerboard trunk was leaking.  The bilge was full.  We were going down.

"Ugh," I said, slapping the bilge pump switch.  "Does it have to be now?  I haven't even made tea yet."
Erik stared at the spitting centerboard and sighed.  "Well.  Let's get 'er fixed."